The National Basketball Athletic Trainers Association’s Staff of the Year Award is given to a team that exemplifies excellence in volunteer activities, education, or during an extraordinary act.
The Utah Jazz training staff was certainly extraordinary on March 11, when the Jazz received the NBA’s first positive COVID-19 test, setting into motion a series of events that would indefinitely shut down the league. That night, trainers from the Jazz sprang into action, managing the testing of players and staff and coordinating their safe return home to Utah. For their actions, the team’s athletic training staff were chosen as co-recipients of the NBATA’s staff of the year honors.